Sport

Sherone Simpson: A star on and off the track

By LEIGHTON LEVY, Freelance Writer

Sherone Simpson - Ian Allen

A MERE 1.63 metres tall and barely 45 kgs in weight, Sherone Simpson is showing the world that she is a powerhouse on the track.

A few months shy of her 21st birthday, Simpson is currently in the top five female sprinters on both the 100-metre and 200-metre world lists.

Simpson clocked a fast 11.03 seconds at the National Stadium on May 7, in what was then the fastest time in the world this year. A week later in Santo Domingo, Simpson lowered her personal best of 22.70 in the 200 metres to a then world leading 22.46 seconds.

Considering that both performances were early in the season, Simpson has clearly announced herself a medal contender at the upcoming World Athletics Championships in Helsinki this coming August.

It was just last August that Simpson finished sixth in the Olympic 100-metre final in Athens, and then capped the meet by running a blistering second leg as a member of the first-ever Jamaican female sprint relay team to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games, all this while maintaining a healthy grade point average as a business and management major at the University of Technology (UTech).

For her achievements on and off the track while she was away competing in Santo Domingo on May 14, Simpson was named Sportswoman of the Year at UTech and awarded the President's Pin for her academic excellence.

In short, it has been a wonderful 10 months for the little woman from Manchester.

"It has been good," she said, temporarily at a loss for words to describe her accomplishments over the last year.

She reveals though that it is a challenge maintaining such levels of excellence both on the track and in the classroom.

"Balancing academics and track and field is very hard. Waking up for the morning sessions at 5 o' clock and then to be ready for class at 8 o'clock is tedious but both are important and I try to place emphasis on both. I now have a 3.6 Grade Point Average (GPA) and I am hoping to maintain that until I finish UTech in two years. I was so happy to hear that I was a recipient of the President's Pin." Even more, she says, than her Sportswoman of the Year Award.

"Because, people have it that most athletes can only perform well on the track and field but academically they are no good and I am happy that I am an exception and I do well in both."

Life after track

There is after all, life after track and field.

"I really want to go into the tourism sector, especially in the hotel industry," she reveals. "I really have a love for it. I want to play a positive role in that industry. Tourism is very important to Jamaica and I want Sherone Simpson to be a part of that. So, I want to work in one of those big hotels and maybe later I can be a hotel manager."

Growing up in Devon, Manchester, Simpson says she had a happy childhood playing cricket and running relays with her siblings. She attended the Christiana Leased Primary School where she says, her teachers always encouraged and supported her passion for track and field. She succeeded at the Common entrance examinations and was placed at Knox College, she says, but transferred to Manchester High because she thought the school offered her a better opportunity to successfully pursue her academic and athletic goals.

She also enjoyed the love and support of her parents Audley Simpson and Vivienne Campbell. Her father, she says, has always been there for her, helping her make the right decisions and supporting her every step of the way.

However, it was her mother who kept her from quitting track and field a few years into high school.

"She lives in the Bahamas and normally I would spend summers with her. My first year in Class II, my performance (at Girls' Champs) wasn't good. I visited her that summer and we spoke. I told her that I was going to quit track and field and just concentrate on school. She said 'no, you know you're going to have rough times'.

"I came back and decided to listen to her. My last year in Class II was very good. That's when my career started to shine. That's when I made the team to the CAC Championships in Barbados. I am happy I listened to her. I am happy I have a mother like that with whom I can sit down and talk about anything."

As she has matured, she has been mentored by others as well. She names Ian Thorpe, a lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering at UTech, and Bruce James, president of the MVP Track Club, as being instrumental to her success as both student and athlete.

"I am happy to have these people to help me with my decision-making," she says.

So determined

She learns a lot too from her world-class training partners Asafa Powell and Brigette Foster. I really admire Brigette's whole attitude to training. She is so determined; she'll not stop until she gets it right. I really appreciate training with her. Asafa really works hard and I especially watch when he is doing his starts because he's pretty good. I am happy that I have those two persons who I can emulate and try to adopt some of their positive ways to help me in my career."

Laughing heartily, she admits she is lazy when it comes to training. Simpson says the exercise she hates the most is the clean and jerk but she is beginning to appreciate it for what it does for her.

"When it comes to weight training the exercise I really don't like is the 'cleans', and last year I did no 'cleans' at all. But what I have come to realise is that that exercise helps with my explosiveness and now I am doing so well at 'the cleans'. Now that I am doing well, it gives me that push to train," she says.

She has been doing so well in fact, she has even been surprising herself so far this season. She says that the 22.46 in Santo Domingo was done in cold, wet conditions and with a sore groin which forced her to 'walk' the curve. "I was so surprised by the time," she says. "I'm very, very satisfied, from 22.70 to 22.46, that's very, very good."

The 200 metres, however, is not a certainty in her future.

"If I see that I am doing well in the 200 and the 100 metres, especially the 200, I will stick to the double because if I am doing well, why not do them."

Word from the camp is that Simpson is capable of going as fast as 10.7s this season. It is a target she struggles to embrace.

"When you think of that time, it takes a lot of work physically, mentally. You have to think 10.7 straight through, when you're training, when you go to bed, before every race, 10.7, 10.7, and let me tell you that takes a lot of work, and right now I am not there yet. Right now I am not thinking about 10.7, I just want to break the 11 seconds barrier."

Simpson has come to appreciate how much she has accomplished but it still has not diminished her desire for greater individual success. The sweet taste of the relay gold medal in Athens has only served to whet her appetite and she craves for so much more starting at the World Champion-ships in just over two months' time.

"It really, really gives me that drive for that individual medal." she says, her voice pregnant with the anticipation of what the future holds.

"At 19 years old, my first senior, major meet, I made the final of the 100 metres, placed sixth and then a gold medalist. That is a lot. Just making the final of the 100 metres is a major accomplishment. So, it really gives me that drive. I want to start from the world championships, maybe not aiming for a gold medal but just to medal in the 100 metres and then at the next Olympics aiming for a gold medal. That is at the top of my agenda."